We've Come A Long Way by Roger Levy

First Published Sept 23, 2014

We’ve come a long way! Join us and make our journey shorter!

By Roger Levy

Back in 1990, when the Trigeminal Neuralgia Association was first organized, its growth and development depended on the volunteer founders and some leading neurosurgeons who were concerned that little was being done to help patients understand their condition and gain access to specialists who could treat their condition. The Internet had yet to develop and getting the word out was managed through support groups started by volunteer patients who had become acquainted with the Association.

As time went on and the number of patients who looked to the Association for information and support began to grow so did the association’s awareness of the limitations which affected the medical and surgical options available as treatment. The drugs, after all, do nothing but dull the pain and most of the surgical procedures involve permanent damage to the nerve and that damage can often result in increased and, sadly, inoperable pain if the procedure fails.Gamma Knife treatment which involves radiation is promoted by many centers as non-invasive and yet there are too many patients who have increased pain where the radiation treatment failed.Even microvascular decompression which has a high success rate and involves no permanent damage to the nerve has its limitations because it involves a hospital stay and general anesthetic, for which some patients are not candidates either through choice or some other medical condition.

Still, over the years, the Association has helped many tens of thousands of patients to gain relief and regain a good quality of life. This is an important and continuing part of the Association’s mission on which it continues to deliver. But what of tomorrow’s patients or those today with unresolved pain?What’s to be done about them?

That is a question which the Association began to address when your Founding Trustees, Michael Pasternak, Mike Hirsch and Iwere members of the Association’s Board. Faced with that challenge, we embarked on an ambitious plan to establish a facial pain research program at the McKnight Brain Institute at the University of Florida, where Doug Anderson, Foundation trustee, was then the Executive Director.However, raising sufficient funds for research and meeting other parts of the Association’s mission was too great a challenge. Thus we chose to establish The Facial Pain Research Foundation.

That was over two years ago and look how far we have come! In a short period of time, TheFacial PainResearch Foundationhas raised over $1,300,000and has provided funding for 4 separate research projects intended to find a permanent end to the pain of trigeminal neuralgia.Now, as word gets out across the internet via our Web Newspaper, people are contacting us from all over the world to ask “How can we help?” - Something unimaginable in 1990.When I was diagnosed with TN in that year, there were few places to turn.My neurologist could only recommend Tegretol or, when I proved allergic, acupuncture.Surgery, he warned me, was to be avoided at all costs.It was not until 1997 that the internet lead me to the Association and to a quick path to relief through microvascular decompression.Even with all those years of pain, though, I count myself lucky now that I am pain and medication free.Not every patient enjoys that success and for them and the patients who have yet to come, the work of the Foundation is imperative.

If you are reading this, chances are you are doing so because of the reach of the internet and, so rather like the support groups of the ‘90s, you have the opportunity to support our cause and bring our journey to a successful conclusion more swiftly. You can help in many ways as you can read elsewhere in our Newspaper, including making a financial contribution.Contributions are now coming to us almost daily with words of support and encouragement.No amount is too small to win our gratitude or to help.

We have world class scientific investigators enthusiastically working on behalf of facial pain patients, without national or other boundaries. They are our researchers “sans frontieres” and the benefits of their research will similarly lack borders.We are a community brought together by common cause.Be part of that community and help us to achieve our goals.